I have been using the same Hanukkah lamp for nearly 20 years. I find it aesthetically-challenging and totally impractical: it is difficult to clean and the candles fall out. Yet I persist in using it because it provokes me to think. When I put the illuminated, figurative lamp on the windowsill to publicly “proclaim the Hanukkah miracle of light,” the same three questions always resurface in my mind: “Who designed this lamp?,” “What were they thinking?,” and, “Are Mickey and Minnie Mouse actually Jewish?”

The scene never changes. According to the mantle clock it is 12:12 (a.m. or p.m.?) and Mickey and Minnie are cozily positioned in front of a redbrick fireplace, where a log fire blazes. They are happily ensconced in a round of the dreidel game, which is typically played during the Hanukkah holiday and is an evolutionary form of an old German gambling game, which involved a spinning top. In this Jewish version, Hebrew letters are written on the four faces of the top, denoting how many pieces can be won from the pot. The ante pieces may be plastic chips, pennies, buttons, nuts or candy, according to family tradition. Rabbinic tradition, in turn, has given the Hebrew letters a symbolic, theological meaning relating to the festival.

In the Mouse household, the stakes are high and the booty is lined up in front of the players. There are towers of silver and gold coins, two big bags (evidently holding more coinage) and three half eaten chocolate coins lying on the parquet. This show of wealth is framed at each end with an unopened, wrapped gift. The presumable meaning of this scenario is that Mickey and Minnie are staying up way past their bedtimes and have been given unlimited access to chocolate coins, a wish not uncommon among Jewish children.

While it is customary to give children money on Hanukkah, the precise origin of the custom is unclear. It is known from centuries past that parents gave their offspring money to distribute to their teachers during the holiday and the wealthy gave financial donations to help support Torah students. Chocolate “Hanukkah gelt (money)” became popular in the USA when foil-wrapped chocolate coins first made an appearance there in the 1920s and are still beloved today. The meaning of Hanukkah monetary gifts is a matter of interpretation: some consider it an opportunity to teach children about giving charity, others view the coins as a symbol of freedom. In the story relating to Hanukkah, the Jews free themselves from an oppressive regime and minting coins can be seen as a mark of independence.

However, if we step back from these layers of Jewish interpretation and look at my Hanukkah lamp again, what do we see? The dominant motifs are mice (friendly, Jewish vermin) and money; the prevalent themes appear to be consumption and the acquisition of wealth. We live in an age in which the stereotypical association of Jews and wealth is still perpetuated and reinforced.

During a recent trip to Poland, I bought a “Żydki” painting for the Jewish Museum Berlin collection, after much consideration. I was wandering through a street market in a small town and discovered a huge selection of miniature paintings and prints showing stereotypical figures of bearded, male Jews, counting money. I walked away from one stall three times before I finally took a deep breath and exchanged my złotys for an original work of dubious artistic quality. Such images (and figurines) are produced today for the general Polish public who view them as good luck charms that bring prosperity. These pervasive representations hang in shops, restaurants and of course in private homes.

In Poland, non-Jews mostly perceive them as charming objects of local folk art. From the viewpoint say, of a Jewish-American tourist, the stereotypical representations scream of anti-Semitism. The dual convictions, from different cultural contexts, co-exist uncomfortably. The Polish images travel to new destinations with every tourist’s purchase and are placed on display in public and in private, just like my Disney lamp. Let’s not underestimate the visual power and impact of messages broadcast by seemingly harmless objects.

Michal Friedlander is Curator of Judaica and Applied Arts and her most recent museum acquisition is a Yoda Lego Mezuzah. But that’s another story.

]]>http://www.jmberlin.de/blog-en/2015/12/hanukkah-gelt/feed/0“I see a land bright and clear, and the time’s comin’ near When we’ll live in this land, you and me…”http://www.jmberlin.de/blog-en/2015/03/pessach/
http://www.jmberlin.de/blog-en/2015/03/pessach/#respondSat, 28 Mar 2015 23:10:26 +0000http://www.jmberlin.de/blog-en/?p=3345Pessach is approaching – the festival of exodus and freedom. This year, there is less talk of having the festive meal at large community gatherings. It is obvious, although unspoken, that smaller gatherings in the home make more sense. We are becoming alienated from our community centers through fear. Keep a low profile. Don’t speak Hebrew on the streets. Some people are removing the mezuzah from their front doorposts, a traditional object that visibly identifies a Jewish household. There is a mood of caution and nervous apprehension.

How did it get to this point?

Advertisement with Imam Ferid Heider and Rabbi Daniel Alter for the “Cycling Unites”-Critical-Mass-Tour in Berlin on 22 March 2015, photo: Michal Friedlander

June, 2014
A drunken man rolls slowly off the train platform and plops onto the tracks at Friedrichstrasse station. Around sixty people witness the moment and look away, hoping that someone else will solve the stinky, awkward problem. And so it was. An Italian and an Israeli jumped down to haul the semi-conscious man to safety. The passengers walked around the startled little group, pressing forward to make the oncoming train.

July 2014
Dinner party small talk. The discussions nearest me are taking a more political turn and I am just not in the mood to talk about Israel. Too late. The young man next to me asks if I saw the recent pro-Palestinian demonstration on the Kurfürstendamm? He becomes very still and lowers his voice. “I was there,“ he says quietly. “I was taking a stroll with my grandmother on my arm. My grandmother who survived Auschwitz, my grandmother who has a tattoo on her arm had to hear the shouts: ‘Jude, Jude, feiges Schwein – komm heraus und kämpf’ allein.’ Where are we? Is this Berlin, 2014?”

September 2014
A call to the Jews of Germany! We are marching! We say no to anti-Semitism and demand mutual respect for all cultures and beliefs! We will march arm in arm to the Brandenburg Gate – tolerant brothers and sisters from all cultures! We will show the world a thing or two about human dignity!
It wasn’t quite like that. We were moved to hear the German President and Chancellor, the Mayor of Berlin and an eloquent church representative champion a democratic and liberal society. But someone was missing. Yes, there were Jews who had driven up from Munich at the crack of dawn; there were organized church groups and even a smattering of Copts. The organizers estimated that there were around 8,000 attendees, but even if you included every armed police official, you would have been hard pressed to count 4,000 people. Max Mustermann (John Q. Public) was busy that Sunday afternoon.

Poster for the demonstration against anti-Semitism on 14 September 2014 in Berlin, photo: Michal Friedlander

November 2014
I attend a Jewish Museum conference in Warsaw. It opens with three minutes of silence in memory of those killed in the May terror attack on the Jewish Museum in Belgium. The time passes quickly and we move on.

January 2015
The horrific and murderous hand of religious fanaticism is even more tangible. 17 people died in Paris after three days of deadly attacks, one at the offices of a satirical magazine “Charlie Hebdo” and another at a kosher supermarket in the capital. 40 world leaders lead a march of unity from the Place de la Republique, followed by 1.6 million people crying “Je suis Charlie!”
Would so many people have taken to the streets of France because of the attack on the kosher supermarket, or for a comparable attack on a mosque or homeless shelter?

February 2015
Attacks in Copenhagen. In our museum offices, non-Jewish colleagues are receiving worried telephone calls from relatives who are concerned for their safety.
I get a call from Brussels. Could I recommend a place in the States where it might be possible to raise Jewish children with a positive Jewish identity; a place where a family can live openly as Jews without feeling under threat? We have the same heated discussion that our grandparents had in 1935. Where is the safest place for Jews to live in Europe? Is moving to Israel a viable or relevant option?

Dr. Josef Schuster, President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, warns against wearing a kippah, a traditional Jewish head covering, in certain urban neighborhoods. No “visible” Jew needs to be told this, but knows from depressing experience that when taking the air, it is wise to conceal a kippah under a generic hat. Schuster is trying to send a signal to the general population, but the point goes over their heads, so to speak.

March 2015
Back to my routine commute on the U-Bahn – the inner city forum for human and viral encounter. A woman enters my compartment and yells at a man who may, or may not be Moslem, “Go back to where you came from! We don’t want your dictatorship here!” Another passenger responds, “Your problem is with the media, not with us. Leave us alone.” “You see,” she shouts back, “I can’t even express myself for two minutes on the train!”

After making the school run, we pass a newsagent’s shop that brandishes the news headline “192 attacks on Jews.” I want to keep walking but am transfixed. “I wish that I weren’t the only Jewish person in my class” my young daughter remarks, “and I wish that it could be a boy. If there were two Jewish girls in the class, the boys would laugh at us.”

Freedom. The freedom to express hatred and the freedom to ignore it. And you and me are free to be you and me:

Michal Friedlander, Curator for Judaica and Applied Arts

]]>http://www.jmberlin.de/blog-en/2015/03/pessach/feed/0“Remember, remember…” a date in Novemberhttp://www.jmberlin.de/blog-en/2014/11/remember-remember-a-date-in-november/
http://www.jmberlin.de/blog-en/2014/11/remember-remember-a-date-in-november/#respondTue, 04 Nov 2014 23:05:27 +0000http://www.jmberlin.de/blog-en/?p=2492The 9th of November was not a day of national commemoration in England, where I grew up. We had to

“Remember, remember the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and plot…”

The Gunpowder Plot Conspirators, unknown engraver, ca. 1605-1606

This was the date on which Guy Fawkes, a Catholic renegade, dramatically failed to blow up London’s House of Lords. This cultural memory has been faithfully preserved for over 400 years. However, the 9th of November never went unremarked in our household. It was always referred to in German with a shudder: “Kristallnacht,” a name and concept for which no English equivalent exists.

Moving to Germany in 2001, I was surprised to discover that the 9th of November was indeed a day when the organized pogroms against Jews in Germany in 1938 were discussed in the media and commemorative events were held. Appropriate terminology was the subject of earnest debate: “Kristallnacht” (“the night of broken glass”) was deemed too poetic, the epithet downplaying the brutality of the events. “Reichskristallnacht” (“the imperial night of broken glass”) was a potentially better term, as it was clearer that the crimes were state sanctioned and nationwide. “Reichspogromnacht” (“the imperial pogrom night”) gave a truer sense of the violence and murders that took place. But then again, shouldn’t the term “Nacht” (night) be completely reconsidered, as the events did not take place on a single evening, but over two days? Such discussions were foreign to me.

The 9th of November is a date of historical confluence in Germany, combining the November Revolution of 1918, the Beer Hall (Hitler) Putsch of 1923, Reichspogromnacht and, most recently, the fall of the Berlin Wall. I noted that, over the years, the commemoration of Reichspogromnacht receded into the background. It was overshadowed by stories relating to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the GDR, which is already 25 years in the past. With a new generation, events of historical significance were being replaced by more recent events and layers of history concealing what had come before.

In Judaism, most national calamities have notably fallen on the same date: the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av. These include the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, the subsequent exile of the Jews from the Land of Israel and the expulsion of Jews from various countries. For Jews, the events do not replace what came before, although they are centuries apart, they coexist in Jewish cultural and historical memory.

Which historical memories prevail today in the Berlin neighborhood of Lichtenberg? Back in 1905, local Jews founded a small, backyard synagogue here in the Frankfurter Allee. They commissioned colorful stained glass windows, one of which featured a large Star of David and the date of the synagogue’s founding, inscribed in Hebrew.

The congregation grew, leaving the premises and the windows behind in 1934. The building was no longer a synagogue, but the Star of David window remained in place. The Stadtmission of the Protestant Church moved in during the 1940s and under the GDR regime, the windows were carefully removed and placed in the attic, where they gathered decades of dust. When rediscovered, the complete set was donated to the Jewish Museum Berlin in 2003. It is quite miraculous that the window with Jewish iconography was unscathed on Reichspogromnacht and the set appears to be the only group of synagogue stained glass windows in Berlin to have survived intact. They remain as silent witnesses to historical events and the changing use of the building, which now houses a lively children’s indoor playground.

It must be possible for the singular and parallel strata of historical events to be remembered and preserved in some way, without obliterating the past.

“Remember, remember the 5th of November, gunpowder, treason and plot; for there is a reason why gunpowder and treason should ne’er be forgot.”

“We used to throw stones at her – we thought she was a witch.” With these words, a former resident of Rishon LeZion ruefully told me of her childhood encounters with the sculptor and doll maker, Edith Samuel. Edith wore her long, dark, European skirts under the searing Middle Eastern sun and suffered from a physical deformity. The daughter of a liberal German rabbi, Edith and her sister Eva were both artists who left their home city of Essen in the 1930s and immigrated to Palestine.

The Samuel sisters worked long hours, struggled to earn a living and did not gain the recognition that they deserved, during their lifetimes. The exhibition “Tonalities” at the Jewish Museum Berlin aims to bring forgotten women artists back into the public arena. It presents Eva Samuel’s works and that of other women ceramicists who were forced to leave Germany after 1933.

My search for transplanted German, Jewish women in the applied arts began many years prior to my encounter with the Samuel sisters. It was Emmy Roth who first captured my attention. Born in 1885, Roth was an exceptionally talented and internationally successful silversmith, who worked in Berlin. She immigrated to Palestine and fell into obscurity, ultimately taking her own life in 1942. Her male refugee colleagues, Ludwig Wolpert and David Gumbel, were appointed to teach metalwork at the Jerusalem New Bezalel School of Art in the late 1930s. They are feted in Israel today, whereas Roth is still completely unknown there.

How could I find evidence of Roth in Palestine and of other overlooked women who are no longer alive? Where did they go when they left Germany? Had they changed their names? When I started my research, the Internet had few leads to offer me. I scoured historical Jewish publications from Britain, the United States and pre-State Palestine. I plodded through academic tomes and art catalogues looking for hints. I questioned colleagues, librarians, archivists, gallery owners, dealers, design experts and mentioned the project to just about anyone I met, to the point of being annoying.

Names and objects began to surface. One balmy Berlin evening, I sat next to an elderly man at an exhibition opening. We fell into conversation and he told me about his Jewish mother, who had worked in glass design. Would I be interested in seeing her work? Yes, indeed. In Jaffa, a grubby flea market dealer had piles of pre-State ceramics, but didn’t know how to decode the artists’ signatures. Would I like to accompany him on his moped to view his warehouse stock? Debatable. Nonetheless, I decided to focus my research on ceramicists and promptly found works by three different German émigré women in a single Israeli museum depot. The pieces were in perfect condition, but were caked in dust and had not been displayed since they entered the collections more than four decades ago.

I made a pilgrimage to Rishon LeZion, south of Tel Aviv, where the Samuel siblings had settled. Here I found the dilapidated and abandoned hut where Eva Samuel had set up her ceramics studio. The exterior walls are covered in graffiti and the littered, vacant plot in which it sits is used for ad hoc parking. I am sure that the interior hasn’t changed much since Samuel closed down “Kad va-Sefel” (“Jug and Mug”) in 1979, after 45 years of business. When I enquired, I was told that there are currently no plans in effect to restore it. This fact only makes me more committed to continue searching for and collecting evidence of German, Jewish women who worked in the applied arts, before their traces are erased completely.

Do you have information about German Jews who were active in the applied arts (design, textiles, ceramics, metalwork, glass etc.)? If so, we would love to hear from you. Please contact: judaica@jmberlin.de.

Our current special exhibition “The Whole Truth… everything you always wanted to know about Jews” is based on 30 questions posed to the Jewish Museum Berlin or its staff over the past few years. In the exhibition, visitors have their own opportunity to ask questions or to leave comments on post-it notes. Some of these questions will be answered here in our blog. This month’s question is: “How does a kippah stay on?”

If a non-Jew tries on a kippah, it usually falls off. This isn’t fair, but let’s examine the circumstances more closely. When tourists visit the Jewish cemetery in Prague, all men are asked to wear a kippah. Those who travel kippah-free are requested to don a blue, sharply-creased, circular piece of paper. The precarious kippah is inevitably subjected to the winds off the Vltava and flutters away. Comparably, a non-Jewish man attending a synagogue ceremony such as a marriage or Bar Mitzvah, will usually be requested to wear a kippah. Here, a stiff yet slippery synthetic satin kippah is ubiquitous. No guest stands a chance.

What then is the secret to making a kippah stay on? It is disappointingly simple. Jews who frequently wear a kippah know where to put it on their head (the crown) and tend to own kippot which have been tried, tested and are a good fit. Should they opt for one of the smaller kippah sizes (as opposed to the head-encompassing “soup bowl” style) a hair clip may be used to fasten the fabric to any available hair. This solution is not universally accepted, however, and the hair clip is rejected by staunch traditionalists. If the wearer chooses a suede kippah, bald heads happily have the advantage of a high coefficient of friction.

Should all else fail, the ultimate kippah secret is double-sided fashion tape or a dot of one-sided velcro. Please note: stick the velcro to the kippah, not to your head.

13:45 After returning our food trays in the Mensa, there is a rush for the freezer box containing ice cream. Avoiding the crush, I make for the candy stand. Deliberations. I confer with my colleagues. M & Ms, Toblerone and Rittersport. Wrappers are discarded before we have even left the room.

14:00 I scroll through the 13 page document listing the questions asked by museum visitors. The questions relate to Jews, Judaism and the Jewish Museum Berlin. Many repetitions. The list needs to be tidied up for exhibition use. A few samples:

Why are there so many Jewish museums and who pays for it all?
Are Jews normal?
Do Jews have horns?
Why do Jews think they are so special?
Why don’t all Jews live in Israel?
Why didn’t Jews defend themselves against the Nazis?
…?

16:00 The showcase legs are in Berlin – hurrah! With great anticipation we rush to the galleries on a Toblerone high. The conservation department meets us there. Will the showcases survive the “wobble” test? Showcases are forcibly wobbled, but prove to be stable. A big relief for all.

16:50 One showcase has a built-in microphone into which the visitors should speak. The microphone is set at a height of 1 meter 20 cms. I suggest that it would be better if our taller visitors did not have to bend over double in order to use it. We call the designer. The height is set for children and visitors in wheelchairs. I sense Tall-ism.

17:30 Graphic designer is on the phone. Yes, the 10,000 post-it notes have been printed and are ready for shipment. They include a reference to the museum’s Facebook page. By the way, there is a small typo and the link takes you to a man in Mexico.

The evening is still before us. Pass the M & Ms.

Michal Friedlander, Curator for Judaica and Applied Arts

]]>http://www.jmberlin.de/blog-en/2013/03/trials-of-a-truth-seeker-part-two/feed/1Trials of a Truth Seekerhttp://www.jmberlin.de/blog-en/2013/03/trials-of-a-truth-seeker/
http://www.jmberlin.de/blog-en/2013/03/trials-of-a-truth-seeker/#commentsThu, 14 Mar 2013 13:27:53 +0000http://www.jmberlin.de/blog-en/?p=604The exhibition “The Whole Truth … everything you always wanted to know about Jews” opens next week. The curatorial team steps back to admire the showcases and compliment one another on a job well done.

Not quite. Let me guide you through my morning.

8:45 Arrive at office and stack my drawers with the healthy snacks I have purchased: bananas, apples and organic crispy wafers.

8:50 Walk over to the galleries to view the showcases, which need to be placed in their final positions this morning.

9:00 Galleries eerily empty. Project manager cheerfully mentions that there is snow on the Autobahn from Dresden to Berlin. A few showcases have made it through, but their legs are on the Autobahn. Will call when legs arrive.

9:10 Back to office. Time to authorize the final release of the exhibition texts for production. Make good progress. A colleague pops her head in and glances at the samples in my hand. She points her Smartphone at the texts that are printed on a color background. “Just as I suspected,” she announces, “the English texts cannot be seen by a color-bind visitor.” “How do you know?” “I have to check our web-site for maximum accessibility and have an app here that shows me how the world looks to a color-blind person. Did you know that 10% of men are color-blind?”

10:15 Decide to close office door. 2 bananas.

10:30 Receive scan of an image that is to be blown up to one meter in diameter in the exhibition. It is the stamp used by a rabbi in southern Germany to certify that products are kosher. He has very kindly agreed to make an image available to us. Oops. There is a typo in the first stamp: his name is spelled wrong in Hebrew. Never mind, there’s the second stamp. This cannot be true! It should read “Jüdische Gemeinde” (“Jewish Community of …”) but instead it reads “Indische Gemeinde” (“Indian community of …”).

10:40 Safety in numbers. I brave the snow and go to the team office down the road. We can review texts together. Already feel better. Cashews and dried cranberries for all. “Buddha has a capital ‘B’ in English, right?” my colleague calls out to me. I return the question with “Is ‘Mitznefet’ spelled without the first ‘t’ in the German transliteration of the Hebrew, like Bar Mizwa?” A reassuring “Ja!” We are old hands and have been pumping out texts here for the past twelve years.

12:15 The Bernard Madoff “Smash Me” doll has arrived, a trident-toting statuette of the criminal financial advisor. It seems he is very smashable as his head broke off during shipping. His glasses are missing, hair and eyebrows are uncharacteristically red. I call our paintings conservator: “I know that you have a lot to do, but if you have a free moment, could you give Bernie a make-over? His hair should be silver.”

13:00 Time for a quick lunch break. We are late to the Mensa. The fruit salad is gone and I am forced to have a large slice of rhubarb cake. Exhibition team exchanges info over the lunch table. The dress is still in Australia, the ceramics are stuck in customs: the invoice is inside, rather than outside the box. A critical debate: will anyone notice, apart from us, if there is a slight inconsistency in the wording of the credit lines in the labels?